Anna David's Blog, page 10

Where Experts Say Publishing is Heading in 2023

 

The new podcast name debuts with a first-of-its-kind (at least for me) episode: a compilation of thoughts from the different publishing experts who have been on the show.

I was able to get both recorded and written thoughts from a bunch of my favorites, including Dave Chesson, Roseanne Cheng, Amber Vilhauer, Shelby Leigh, Derek Murphy and more. And they talked about everything from social media to AI to taking success into your own hands to so much more.

Give it a listen and get ahead of everything that 2023 has in store for us.

RELATED EPISODES:  

The Debut of Launch Pad with Dave Chesson

Derek Murphy on How to Actually Make Money From Book Sales

How Authors Can Master TikTok with BookTok Sensation Shelby Leigh

Publishing in the Time of Cancel Culture with Tony Lyons

What Your Non-Fiction Book Needs with Elizabeth Lyons

Why Authors Should Be Using Pinterest with Roseanne Cheng

Making an NFT Out of Your Book With Lee Richter

Selling Your Book as a Series of NFTs with Elle Griffin

TRANSCRIPT:

So this is a really amazing episode because it is a gathering of information. So this is my collection of what's to come in publishing in 2023. What are the experts think because God knows I can't give you as good an answer if it's just me. So I gathered some of the biggest in the business and got them to give me their predictions. Some of them recorded, some of them I'm going to summarize because they wrote them up.

And these experts include Dave Chesson from Kindlepreneur. Roseanne Cheng from Evergreen Authors, Derek Murphy from Creative, creative, I can never say his company name Creativindie, writing coach and coach trainer Jenny Nash, Amber Vilhauer from NGNG, BookTok sensation Shelby Leigh, publisher Elizabeth Lyons and Skyhorse publishing CEO Tony Lyons, these have all been guests on the show, or they're going to be guests on the show.

So let's start with one where I can roll the audio, by the way, long wanted to say roll the audio. So you'll hear me say it a few times. Dave Chesson, who I just mentioned, is a book marketer. But he's so much more than that. He is truly the king of Indie publishing, he created Kindlepreneur, publisher rocket software, which I recommend to everybody. It's all about finding keywords and categories. He also recently launched Atticus layout software. And he was my first guest when I converted this podcast into a podcast about publishing. So here's what Dave Chesson had to say.

Dave Chesson: When self-publishing first got started, authors really didn't have many tools at their disposal. Matter of fact, Kindle Direct Publishing’s dashboard was incredibly terrible at reporting any legitimate data. And so this left authors with a lot of questions. However, though, fast forward to today, and self-published authors, as well as publishing authors have been getting access to more data, more tools and capabilities that allow them to make smarter decisions as we move forward. So as we go into 2023, I see self-published authors, as well as published authors, having access to more data, as well as more capabilities and not have to rely as much on companies and publishing companies to take that work, or not having to rely on kind of guesswork and sort of facing against some of the giants out there in the industry. And so I see this great equalizer occurring, and this has been happening year over year.

Anna David: Now, obviously, as someone who is constantly preaching the choir about how thrilled I am about the democratization of publishing, I love that one. So now let's go to Amber Vilhauer. Amber is the founder of NGNG, which stands for No Guts, No Glory, which helps authors to launch successful books by leveraging their network and I recently connected with her. I'm blown away by her strategies,  her organization, her brilliance, I am just in the process of soaking up all of her knowledge. And now I'm going to give you some of her knowledge about what's coming in 2023.

Amber Vilhauer: Between publishing house delays and lack of their marketing support, I believe more authors will start to wake up to their responsibility, and opportunity, to turn their book into something more than just a product. What I mean is, more authors will seek out advice from people like myself and your other guests on this episode, to learn about how to grow their online platform and sales, by using their book is part of the equation, but maybe not put so much pressure on themselves to sell a million copies. The real opportunity is, what can I do with my book to generate millions and impact millions without necessarily having to sell a million books. And this is from Amber Vilhauer.

Anna David: Again, preaching exactly what I believe. So now let's go to Derek Murphy. Derek is one of a kind. He has a PhD in comparative literature. He's a book cover designer, he's an author in multiple genres, and he has incredible courses and services. He helps people with everything from marketing to editing to publishing. And we I met him in person at the World Domination Summit in Portland a few years ago and I was immediately struck as I'm sure most people are by him by how unique, kind, brilliant and quirky he is. So let's roll tape on Derek's predictions.

Derek Murphy: I think 2023 is going to be the year of AI. There's already a lot of art generators. And now there's GPT 3, which is a text generator. A lot of these tools are going to be starting to be fully available, even though there's a lot of controversy over them. Microsoft and Canva have designed tools now that generate images and they're also incorporating text generator. Canva just kind of launched that today. These are going to start to appear as WordPress plugins or front facing tools on websites that are going to be free or easy to use. This also applies to AI voices for audiobooks, which are almost good enough, but not quite yet. And then the final thing is that I think a lot of book recommendation sites are going to get a lot smarter. Amazon is already getting rid of keywords and categories, I think. The USA Today bestselling list just kind of shut down because they fired the person in charge of that, I think there's going to be new ways to that Amazon is going to recommend books to readers, without you being able to gain the system quite as much with keywords and stuff. So building your email list, having your own platform of actual fans is going to help. There's also going to be a lot of tools that help you to produce more content better and especially like editing tools and revising, I think that process is going to get a lot easier.

Anna David: So that was fascinating to me this keywords and categories getting rid of I will dig more into that so I can let you guys know what that's about. And the USA Today list dismantling itself happened as of this recording the day Derek recorded this, which is yesterday, and kind of blew my mind. I'll find out more about that.

I mean that if you don't know what I'm talking about, basically, next to the New York Times list, the Wall Street Journal list and the USA Today list are the most important bestseller lists. And as of yesterday, which is December 12th of 2022 they got rid of the USA Today got rid of the editor of it, which means they got rid of the list at least temporarily. All sounds very, very weird. Since it was something that was so important.

In terms of what he said about AI...this also feels like as I'm recording this, like, it has been a huge couple of weeks for AI. This app Lensa came out and we all went crazy, giving up our faces to the cloud or whatever so that we could make ourselves look like superheroes and like really airbrushed and great. I not only did my own, but I did it for my mom and my boyfriend giving their faces over to the facial recognition software, but they love me, so it's fine.

And I've recently just discovered an AI software called Quick Write. And it comes from the creator of Author Lab, which is one of my favorites.

Author Lab is where we make these book mockups where you can take the cover and make it three dimensional, you can make Spiderman holding the cover, you can do anything you want, a couple of kissing, holding your book cover. And I love that software so much that, and I recommend it, and I'm an affiliate for it.

When I heard from him that he had this new AI software Quick Write I immediately started trying it out. And it is kind of blowing my mind. Now a lot of people talk about how AI is going to decimate the creative community. I don't think so. Because there is always skill and talent is always important. Is it going to make our jobs easier? Yeah.

So I just tried it out for blog posts, and I just put in, you know, different topics, it spit out outlines and concepts and really well written text, which I should be alarmed by but, but I'm not. I mean, I'm equally rejoicing and cringing over it.

So Derek is always on the cutting edge. So I would listen to what he thinks is going to happen there.

Now let's get into the stuff I gathered from people who didn't record things but just told me them. This next one is from Roseanne Cheng. She's the co-founder of Evergreen Authors. She's also an author, a book marketer, a book publisher, a writing coach, she's a Pinterest expert. I interviewed her about how authors can use Pinterest, she's wonderful. These are her predictions.

She thinks straight to audio books are gonna be a thing. And what she said to me is, there's so many authors who struggle with the amount of work, time and money it takes to put together a book. And for thought leaders and comedians or anyone else who kind of has a performance aspect to their writing.

She says I think we're going to have more people take advantage of the booming audiobook market and skip paper books altogether.

A few years ago, I heard about this, and I stopped hearing about it. I know Macmillan audio did those Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips. First as an audiobook before it appeared in print. I know Cat Marnell, the author of that wonderful, hilarious book, How to Murder Your Life, she released an audio only book called Self-Tanner for the Soul. So I'm very curious if if this is going to become a thing again.

Roseanne also talked about TikTok and she predicted many authors will actually abandon their other social media accounts to put all their energy on TikTok and she said I don't recommend this, I just predict it. And in a second, I'm going to tell you what BookTok sensation Shelby Leigh predicts because it's very much related.

Roseanne also predicts that NFTs exclusive content and premium access is going to be more of a thing. And her her reasoning is that it takes more than a great book to catch people's attentions. And what catches people's attention is the feeling of exclusivity. And many authors are including private coaching and bonus content as a way of attracting and keeping readers. And I agree with her, I do, but

I do think, you know, NFTs in 2022, we got so excited and then we got so over it. I released two episodes about it because I wanted to learn more about it, episodes with Lee Richter and Elle Griffin, and those episodes did very well. So I know you guys are interested in it too.

But I think the and I made an NFT that nobody bid on, hey, it's still available...I think the barrier to entry with crypto and NFTs is still very high. I tried diligently to set up accounts and get into that world and I was semi successful. I'm reasonably tech savvy, and I actually had help from people. And I still couldn't really do it.

So I was thinking about doing this NFT Party Girl where you can be up for a part in the movie that's going to be shot next year. And I realized that my audience that's you guys just wasn't into the web three enough for it to be worth my energy and all of those things. So but what I do think will happen is, you know, I could release that as a special offer, this Party Girl exclusive, you can be in the movie, you can get this, you can get that, without it being an NFT. Just being something you can buy.

So I do think I agree with Roseanne that stuff is going to happen. And she talks about authenticity and how in the last few years authenticity people who speak to their audiences real, honest, relatable people are creating trust and and how important that is. So I don't know kind of, I guess like the anti Rachel Hollis like what Rachel Hollis purported to be before, kind of revealing herself to not be that. And then she talked about targeted advertising. She's someone who also really understands Amazon ads. And so she thinks that's only going to get more important.

And now let's talk about Shelby Leigh, who is a what she told me she's a poet and a mental health advocate, and a BookTok sensation. And she also has a course very reasonably priced course on how authors can do BookTok, she has sold over 40,000 copies of her books through TikTok, one video alone, she sold 7,000 copies. So what she has to say is, is of course, about TikTok and Instagram, she's also big on Instagram. And she said, I think publishers are going to need to think about direct sales through social media platforms. As Instagram shop continues to grow and TikTok shop is being tested, the ability for readers to buy books directly from their favorite authors and platforms in the app will be a very real and interested really interesting and necessary shift. So heads up on that.

Then we have Jennie Nash, who is the author of 11 books, the founder of Author Accelerator, she's helped clients land agents, six figure book deals, books have made the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. And she says, she thinks more and more writers will come to see that the burden is on them to get their projects into publishable shape, and market their work. Which in my experience has been true for a long time, but people didn't know it until recently. She thinks podcasts are going to continue to be huge, and that and she says she hopes Twitter will survive. Maybe it has survived and is thriving again, by the time you hear this, post Elon Musk acquisition. But she did say it was a fantastic place to learn about publishing news and meet other people in the industry.

And Elizabeth Lyons predicts that more people will turn to hybrid publishers, hooray, and that the USA Today bestseller list will be retired.

Tony Lyons, who is the founder of Skyhorse Publishing talked—this is really more from the publisher’s perspective than the authors—but he talked about how the past two years have been really strong for backlist titles. And it's not going to be as true. So he says, stick with your long-term publishing plans, and goals. And don't take any tough times personally, which I think is always good advice.

So the conclusion of this episode about predictions for 2023 is from BookTok and AI to plummeting black backlist and best seller lists disappearing. The most important things are authors doing what they can for themselves and having an amazing business setup so you can make it through all the inevitable changes coming. So that is it. 2023 predictions. Fabulous guys. I hope you liked this show and I will see you next time.

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR THIS EPISODE OR CLICK HERE TO GET THE POD ON ANY PLATFORM

 

How to Make Writing (or Finishing) Your Book Your NY's Resolution

 

This solo episode is all about how you can make writing (or finishing) your book your New Year's Resolution.

The main points are:

Give yourself a month in 2023 your first draft will be done
Give yourself a daily (or weekly) page count
Have accountability
Build your audience
Don't set yourself up for failure
Get clear on your "why"
Set up small goals along the way

Listen to get all the deets!

RELATED EPISODES:   

Writing a Book in Public with Jesse J. Anderson

How to Write a Book Everyone Recommends with Rob Fitzpatrick

Why All Authors Need to Start Their Newsletter List NOW with Holly Darling

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR THIS EPISODE OR CLICK HERE TO GET THE POD ON ANY PLATFORM   

Why Authors Should Be Using Pinterest with Roseanne Cheng

 

Roseanne Cheng is the author of six books, including The Evergreen Author: Master the Art of Book Marketing and Portable Magic: How to Write and Publish a Great Book. The co-founder of Evergreen Authors—an online school that helps authors figure out the business of being a writer—she is also a Pinterest Queen. Or so I have named her.

In this episode, she broke down why Pinterest is the mostly-undiscovered platform for book promotion, how to create boards that attract the readers you want, whether you should have a page for yourself as an author or each of your books and so much more.

Plus she and her co-founder offer a FREE course on Pinterest that you can get here.

How helpful is this? Well, it's about to make me break my Pinterest cherry (will let you know how that works out).

It's all in this episode! Enjoy.

ALSO! HEY! YOU KNOW THAT AMAZING PODCAST THAT I MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE—FREE TIIME WITH JENNY BLAKE? YOU CAN LISTEN TO IT ON ANY OF THE PLATFORMS HERE.

RELATED EPISODES:      

Turning Online Readers Into Book Readers with Zara Barrie and Dayna Troisi

How Authors Can Improve Their Google Footprint with Josh Greene

The Business of Being a Writer with Jane Friedman

TRANSCRIPT:

 

Anna David: Okay, let's talk Pinterest. So you said it blows people's minds when you talk about how useful Pinterest can be for an author. Tell me what you mean. 

Roseanne: Yeah, so Pinterest. Here's the thing about Pinterest. People think that it is a social media site. They think their people are going on there to interact with other people, or to maybe just find recipes here or there. What and that's, that is only partially true. What Pinterest really is, is a search engine, just like Google is a search engine. And Amazon is a search engine, right? So people go to Pinterest to solve a certain problem, or to look at beautiful pictures of meals they want to make or places they want to go, or whatever the case may be. Pinterest for authors is a perfect marriage. Because if you are an author, you are hopefully, in possession of a book with a beautiful cover something that is very eye catching, I don't care what your genre is, you need to have a great book cover, everybody knows that. So you already have something very visual. That's really important for Pinterest. And then as the bigger added bonus, Pinterest allows you to create different boards that are associated with your author, career, whatever that business is, fiction, nonfiction, doesn't matter. So I've had authors who, maybe they wrote a memoir about traveling to Italy. And they've got a board that is, you know, that shows their favorite Italy memoirs. And their book is obviously among those things that are pinned, but then maybe they have another board that's like, favorite Italian recipes, favorite places to visit in Italy, favorite travel agents in Italy. That's kind of how Pinterest works. It's like this bonus website for authors. So they can use this to attract people who are already looking into the genre of what they're writing about through these different pins. Brilliant. And it's it's free, it's easy to use, it's fun to use. It's such an amazing resource for authors if they use it well. 

Anna David: So question, if you say have a beautiful cover, but nothing else associated with your book is going to make an attractive photo. Is it still useful?

Roseanne: Absolutely. Yep. So here's the other thing about Pinterest that's amazing. When you take time on Pinterest, you see that a lot of the pins that go viral or get shared a lot are pins that are connected to a blog post. Your goal as an author is on Pinterest in particular is to use those pins to lead people to wherever you want them to purchase your book. Maybe it's an Amazon site, maybe it's your website. So many authors I've worked with over the years have these beautiful websites with these blogs that they've written for years and years. And then they look at their analytics. And nobody is reading these beautiful blog posts that they have. However, if you go to Pinterest, and you create a pin, so the graphic on Pinterest is really specific, they want it to be a specific size. If you have a Canva account, you can easily make a Pinterest graphic, and make let's use that Italian author, for example. Because clearly I need a vacation. But let's say I have a website. And I have this blog about all of my travels in Italy. And one of my posts is my five favorite things to pack when I travel to Italy. And I have this post on my blog, I create a pin worthy graphic. So a beautiful graphic in Canva. I put that pin on Pinterest so that is the image. And then when somebody sees that and goes, oh, I would love to see the five things that I should pack when I go to Italy clicks on that pin. And it might not lead to a conversion to purchase your book, but it might lead somebody to your website in general where they're going to follow you on other places, and maybe contact you about speaking to their book club or whatever the case may be. There's so the opportunities on Pinterest are endless. And when authors get really creative about how to use the platform, it's really fun.

Anna David: Can you think I'm sure it must depend, but do you think it's better to link to your Amazon page where somewhere where they can when people can purchase the book directly or your own website? Or your newsletters. Yeah.

Roseanne: Yep, it depends on the pin. And so and you know, a lot of authors now are dabbling in different spaces. So maybe their book is available on Etsy. And maybe it's available on Amazon. And maybe it's available on their website. You can have as many pins as you want, so you can create five different pins leading to different places and see which one converts the best. And then you’ll know.

Anna David: Okay, stop the presses. What do you mean book on Etsy? People sell their books on Etsy? Oh, yeah. Tell me about that.

Roseanne: Yeah, people do. I mean, if you have a gift book, and you wrap it, you know, Etsy is all about beautiful, handmade gifts, right. And so if your book would match with a handmade item, I know, Etsy sells digital products, too. So yeah, it's very possible to sell on Etsy if you want to.

Anna David: So you could sell your ebook. Oh, but I guess, yeah, and your regular book, or your regular book. But if you're gonna sell your regular book, it should have something with it.

Roseanne: That's the Etsy platform. Yeah. I mean, you know, it should be beautifully packaged, or you know, there's, there's an expectation when you purchase on Etsy, that it's going to be a gift and not just show up in an Amazon bag. You know what I mean? But yeah, but authors use Etsy, too. So that's the thing about Pinterest, though, is that you can lead people, wherever you want. Pinterest for me, one of my books is written for teachers. And I know, from Pinterest that teachers are on Pinterest all the time. And I know, as an educator, I was on Pinterest all the time. So I would put that book, or pins that would lead people to that book on Pinterest, and I sold it all over the place. Sometimes on Amazon, sometimes on Teachers Pay Teachers, sometimes for my website, you know, the pins speak for themselves.

Anna David: And if you sell on Etsy, you're gonna have the contact information of the person who bought it, as opposed to if you sell it on Amazon. 

Roseanne: This is true. Yeah, I mean, you know that every platform has its pros and cons, right. So Etsy is, you know, there's, there's, there could be some post office time, and some people don't want that. So you have to, you know, obviously, you know, we say at Evergreen Authors all the time, the goal isn't to be everywhere, all at once. Choose the platforms that work best for you. And for some authors, they're like, Etsy is great. And some authors are like, meh, I'm just gonna focus on Amazon. And that's fine.

Anna David: So, Pinterest. Now what happened when I went to your webinar was I think I begged you guys to do my Pinterest for me. And you basically were like, we can't do that. But we can teach you how to do it. Is that still true?

Roseanne: Well, sort of. So we, we don't really we used to do like quarterly webinars where we would, you know, people would come in and we could kind of walk them through how to set up their Pinterest page, we used to do these kinds of Pinterest takeovers for authors. We don't do them anymore, just because we are just sort of merged into different parts of the business. But we still tell authors all the time, that you want to take advantage of any place that looks like a bonus website for you. Pinterest is one, your Amazon Author Page is one, you know, it's always such a missed opportunity. And you don't have to look any further. You don't need to hire somebody like me to create your Pinterest page for you. Go to Pinterest and spend some time on the platform. Find people who are writing in your genre, or just not writing in your genre, it doesn't matter. As a teacher, I used to learn from people who taught outside of my specific course all the time. Find people who write in a totally different genre and see all the ways that they're using Pinterest. I worked with a fiction author who was really awesome on Pinterest for a long time. And she had all these different boards of things that were just very tangentially related to this fantasy world that she had made. So she had these, you know, a board that was dedicated to, you know, maps of, you know, this kingdom that she had made. And then another board that was, it was something about like aromatherapy connected to all of her characters. I mean, people get so creative on that platform. And that's specifically why creative people should be using it. Because they're already there that people are hungry for that. And I will say that the caveat that I want to add here and this is true for any platform that authors are using, is you can't you have to know how it works. So the word so if anybody's listening to this, and they're thinking to themselves, Oh, I'm just going to hurry up and get an account on Etsy on Pinterest, and just start pinning stuff because Roseanne said that I should probably do that. That's not a great way to use the platform. That's like going on to Amazon and pressing two buttons and running some ads. And then being shocked when those ads, don't convert to sales. Spend some time on the platform, see how other authors are using it, see how comfortable you are on it, see if it's a place where you want to be and where you would enjoy spending time. And then be strategic about your time that you spend on there, we have found that part of that strategy is understanding what the platform is doing. So Pinterest, especially over the last couple of years has really changed. When it first started, it was just stagnant pins. Now, they really reward pins that have video content, they have story pins, pins that are tutorials, if you look at any cookbook author who has pins, you can see the video elements in there. So what you really want to do is kind of follow Pinterest, look at the website itself and look at the sorts of pins that they're promoting. Your analytics are there for you to look at at anytime. So you know, they they're going to reward users, users who are using it to its fullest potential.

Anna David: Now, out of the okay, so with videos, could you post the same ones that you're posting as reels on Instagram? Or if you're posting shorts on YouTube? Is that a good strategy?

Roseanne: Absolutely.

Anna David: Okay. Yeah, because different people are everywhere.

Roseanne: Pinterest is for evergreen content. So if you have if you have a story, or a YouTube video that is very specific to something timely, like this is just happening just today, then I wouldn't put it on Pinterest. But if it's something that is evergreen, absolutely.

Anna David: So into obviously, maybe this isn't true, but I'm gonna say different genres are going to work better than others, like a business book may not work as well on Pinterest. Correct or not correct?

Roseanne: Not correct.

Anna David: Not correct?

Roseanne: Yeah, not correct. I would say because think about it this way. Say you wrote a book that is and the last time I checked, Pinterest was pretty female dominated. So it's mainly females that are using the platform. Let's say I wrote a business book for female entrepreneurs. And I go to Pinterest. And again, it's a search engine. And I'm I go in the search bar, and I go, um, business tips for women. And I see all of these beautiful pins that link to five things that all women should know before they start a business. 10 budget friendly ways to start your business. Five books that changed my life before I started my business. That is going to be incredible for you as a business author. So you know, it's it's a matter of yeah, I mean, I'm sure there's some stuff that wouldn't work well on Pinterest. But if you get creative, you can probably find an angle there.

Anna David: And do you recommend it over the other platforms? Because people don't necessarily think of it first.

Roseanne: Um, I wouldn't say that. The thing with Pinterest that we tell authors all the time, is that it's very different. It's a very unique platform. And they like it that way. Pinterest does not want to be the next Facebook or Instagram. They might borrow ideas for reels and stuff and stories. But there's a reason that their graphics are that very specific size. It's because they want you to spend more time on their platform. So I would say that it's not. It's not social media. There's a social component to it. I guess, because you're sharing you can. It's kind of convoluted, but you can message people and make comments. But it's in no way comparable to something like Facebook, or Instagram or TikTok or anything like that. In terms of connection. It's what I would say is that it's more comparable to Amazon, because again, it's a search bar. It's a search engine that you want to be part of.

Anna David: Yeah, Amazon is the third largest search engine after YouTube and Google I wonder, I wonder where Pinterest lies on that. But now an author, does it make more sense for an author to do an author page or to do specific pages for their different books? If they have more than one book?

Roseanne: I would do an author page because I feel as though I mean, truthfully, we're all just too busy to manage too many different pages, right? It's like I say the same thing with the author website, too. If you're writing in two different jobs, just do one. Yeah, like own it all. You know what I mean? Like that's, it's great. And then that way you can really focus on growing your audience there. And again, this is the brilliance of Pinterest is that if you let's say you're an author who's writing in two vastly different genres, you can have different boards that are associated with those genres. And, and the pins are going to lead the right people to the board that you're talking about you, you won't have to worry about business authors coming to your fantasy page, as long as your pins are being labeled appropriately, which they should be. So yeah, I mean, I would just say one, do one really well, you know, and focus on that.

Anna David: And what's, what are tips for growth on Pinterest?

Roseanne: So Pinterest wants you to use the platform, it's the same on any other platform. They want you on there as much as possible, they want you pinning and repinning. The thing that makes Pinterest really special. And I think most social media, you know, Facebook will say that they're like this as well, but they are looking for quality pins all the time. So that means that your visuals need to be beautiful. Not just okay. But beautiful. There's been many authors who have come to us and said, wait, I don't understand why my Pinterest page is not doing anything. I'm not getting any traction. And I look at their boards. And it's like, there's, there's no, there's dead links everywhere. There's really bad images, or maybe like really unprofessional looking images. It's more important to have beautiful imagery on Pinterest probably than any other platform, if you're going to be creating kind of a bonus website there. And they're going to reward that. They're going they see those beautiful pins and want to push those up in the algorithm too. The thing that's difficult about Pinterest is that, you know, like, you know, there's kind of common wisdom around say like a Facebook or Instagram, Twitter, you're supposed to be tweeting or, you know, posting a few times a week, right, at least. I would say on Pinterest, they want you to be posting a whole lot. So the beautiful thing is, is that you can repin and repost you don't have to continually make new blog posts or continually make new pins. And there are there are apps that can help you. There's one called Tailwind that can help repin you know have pins pin once and then repin several times throughout the day. But I would say that's probably the biggest challenge on Pinterest is to make sure you're actually using the platform, the worst thing you can do is go on there, create a beautiful site, create some boards, and then never login again.

Anna David: Would you say you, do you have to do it every day?

Roseanne: Pin every day?

Anna David: Yeah, it's ideal.

Roseanne: It is. Yeah. And just like every other platform, you want to take a look and see when Pinterest is being used most actively. I remember when I first started using Pinterest, this might not still be true. But I remember seeing that, you know, Saturday mornings were really great time for Pinterest. Because think about it. That's when people are scrolling through their phones, maybe looking for dinner for that night. They're dreaming about their next trip to Italy or whatever the case may be. So I would spend my time Saturday morning I would literally just carve out I'm going to spend 30 minutes on Pinterest every Saturday morning.

Anna David: But you have to post every day, right?

Roseanne: Well, yeah, but then I would yeah, but I used an app called Tailwind to actually schedule my pins pins throughout the week.

Anna David: Okay. Okay. But make sure.

Roseanne: It's possible to do that. But again, you know, I feel like it's very difficult to start scheduling pins without actually spending some time on the platform first and doing it manually. And yes, you want to do it a few times a day. 

Anna David: And you mentioned virality. I think most people including me didn't know things could go viral on Pinterest, but they can.

Roseanne: They can. Absolutely they can yeah.

Anna David: What sorts of things or is it just somewhat random like that Tiktok?

Roseanne: It's I know, I mean, it's always kind of a guessing game when it comes to these sorts of things. But I have found that it's the pins that are like listicles. So it's like the top 10 XYZ things. We have a couple of blog posts on Evergreen Authors that we continually repin on Pinterest that do really well. Just because we we can see it through the analytics. Anything timely is going to be good. So if you have a book that's perfect for the holidays, now's a really great time to start thinking about setting those holiday pins. But yeah, I mean, it's it's moderately random, but the thing is, we always want to focus on quality over quantity. So that's that for me, that's the most important thing.

Anna David: Um, okay, hey, um, what I was gonna ask me is about virality. So have you had pins go viral for you or your clients?

Roseanne: Yeah, absolutely, yeah, we've had several hit. And you know, it's like the word viral is sort of a, it's not like we're, you know, on the nightly news that night, but we've had several pins with that within the first hour or so have had 5000 views.

Anna David: Yeah.

Roseanne: Which is fantastic. It's way better than you could get on a platform like Facebook, without paying for it. Do you know what I mean?

Anna David: Yeah, and I when I say viral I this expression, VFM viral for me. You know, like

Roseanne: I love it.

Anna David: You rather than being like it has to have a million, like, what is a lot more than you normally get is a good way to think about it. Um, so if people, you have the Pinterest course, if people want to learn from you, what should they do?

Roseanne: So we, what we suggest, and this is our Pinterest webinar is a free webinar that we put on our Evergreen Authors site. So if anybody's listening to this, go to evergreenauthors.com and you will find two free videos, one on Amazon advertising and one on Pinterest, watch that thing in its entirety. And get a sense of whether or not Pinterest is right for you. We you know, I we always find that Pinterest is like the gift that we give people who come to Evergreen Authors, because our whole philosophy is writing a book is a lot of work and selling it is it can feel really hard and terrible. But it shouldn't, you should feel joyful to bring to put your book out there. And if you're doing anything to market your book that feels like a waste of time, like you're selling your soul, that you hate it, then don't do it. Please like I'm begging you, don't do it. Find a way to connect with people that's really joyful for you. And for some authors that we've worked with, Pinterest is that thing, and they never even thought about using it. And so it's worthwhile to just look into it. If you watch the webinar, and you're like, no, it's not for me, I promise there's other ways that you can find your joy in marketing. And that's what we do at Evergreen Authors.

Anna David: And so is there a paid, isn't there a paid course that you offer after the webinar? No,

Roseanne: No, just a gift.

Anna David: Just a gift?

Roseanne: Just a gift, yeah.

Anna David: So tell me more about Evergreen and what you do offer?

Roseanne: Yeah, so at Evergreen Authors, we are all about a sustainable writing career for authors, not just like the great launch, and then suddenly you can't sell books. We have been in this business for a long time. We're authors ourselves. So all about having authors figure out one or two things that bring them joy, and doing those two things really well. And having those things convert to sales. We want realistic goals. We're not interested in gaming any systems, we're not interested in any sort of weird, like, if you follow me, I'll follow you back like that. To me, that is a huge waste of time, and doesn't really help anybody sell books or get any messages across. So we're all about one or two things that work really well. For us. We, you know, we've been writing for a really long time, we've written a lot of books, I'm not super interested in being famous, I don't need to be, you know, stopped on the street, like Stephen King would be. So I'm really focused on just making sure that when people go to those search engine sites like Amazon, or Pinterest, that they see my book when they when they're looking for its content, you know, like it says, if my book is cool for you, great. Go ahead, buy it. If not, that's cool, too. I go on to the next thing. That's fine. And so we do that through teaching people how to use targeted ads on on Amazon. We have a course called Algorithm Alchemy that teaches how to run ads on Amazon through pay per click keywords. I will say that authors who have taken that course have used that same knowledge to run ads on Pinterest. We just don't have a course around it. But the same sort of lessons apply where you know, it's like a it's a pay per click kind of thing. And it's it's again, it's about matchmaking your ideal reader with your book, you know, no, stop trying to sell your book to everybody just sell it to the people who are already searching for the content. They're happy, you're happy and you have a sustainable career instead of constantly chasing the next sale.

Anna David: And so is it it's book marketing, would you that's how that's how it is and people can hire you or or do the Amazon course.

Roseanne: Yeah, usually. So we don't we we are strictly courses now. So we don't take on other people's marketing campaigns. We're asked that pretty much on a daily basis at Evergreen Authors. People have offered us quite a bit of money to take on their campaigns for them, you know that. And, and we could probably make a lot more money if we did that. But truthfully, we feel so strongly that when people understand how the marketing work is done, it is so much more beneficial for them in the long run. Yeah, when I when I learned how Amazon ads worked, and let me just be brutally honest, right now, I am the least technical person you have ever met in your life. When Josie my wonderful business partner came to me and was like, I'm going to teach you how to do Amazon ads. I said, absolutely not. I don't do that. I go do school visits. And that's it. And I sell it, you know, it's, and she was like, well, you're exhausted. And maybe just try this one time. And so she taught me through her course, how easy it was. And then when I discovered that I could do it, it meant that truly anybody could do it. And so that's how we teach people how to do this.

Anna David: Um, yeah, I will say long time ago, I did Dave Chesson course on it. And I just felt, and I love everything he does. And I felt thoroughly confused. And so not for me. So maybe I'm just less technical than you. But there's, you know, like, as to your point, it's like, there's only so many things each of us can do. I'm a big fan right now of, you know, for a long time, people said, oh, just just do one platform, forget about the others. And now that things are changing so quickly, I'm telling people do a little bit all the time, just like make sure every week you're posting everywhere. That's what I say, it's not ideal, but it's the reality. I'm just seeing, you know, people's accounts cancelled and billionaires buying platforms,

Roseanne: Correct

Anna David: Overnight. And, you know, I just think that's that's how it is right now.

Roseanne: I think you that's very wise advice, particularly in this time that we're living in. I will add, though, that I think that the best way that authors can keep their sanity around that, is to make sure that everything they post also has a home on their website. So that website is not going to go anywhere. So maybe if you have you know, I mean, I see people using TikTok all the time, I don't use TikTok as an author, I probably wouldn't recommend it for authors. But if you want to be on there, fab, go for it. Save your videos, though, save them somewhere, and maybe make a reel on your website, that is just those same videos that you're posting, because you don't know what's going to happen to that platform.

Anna David: I know that is genius. So I mean, you could theoretically just have a page on your website with every single video you've ever posted on Instagram, or TikTok.

Roseanne: And those would make amazing pins, by the way.

Anna David: And they'd make amazing pins. Oh my God, so many takeaways. So I will definitely link in the show notes to the free Pinterest course and all the other things. Is that the best place for people to find you, what if they want to know more?

Roseanne: Evergreenauthors.com is the place to go. So you will find free stuff, you'll find some paid stuff, you'll find some courses on there. Pretty much every author who comes to us for marketing help finds something on Evergreen Authors that is going to help inspire them. And if not, that's cool, too. We just hope that you see our website and or at least even as a creative person, take our message that you don't, the marketing work does not have to be a chore. Anybody who's telling you that is probably just trying to sell you something. It's not that horrible, as long as you get really honest about your goals and expectations. And you just focus accordingly and keep your eye on quality over quantity. 

Anna David: And remember very well said, but also remember, a small interactive audience is worth more than a large audience who doesn't care any day.

Roseanne: I couldn't agree more. Yeah.

Anna David: It’s not about the numbers.

Roseanne: It's not, and this is where it's tough in the social media days is because you know, we really do equate likes and comments and follows as success. For me as an author, that's not success. For me, it's book sales. For me, it's and this just happened yesterday, I got an email from a random person who picked up my book. I have a book called The Evergreen Author. And she read it and said she had been terrified of marketing her book she it was coming out she was she was ready to pull the plug on the whole process because she was so scared of it. But my book had freed her, it made her feel like she could just do a couple things do them well and and not worry about keeping up with all the other fluff out there and all the voices telling her she has to be everywhere in every doing all the things. That for me is success. To continually get that feedback is what I'm looking for. Yeah.

Anna David: Yep. Well, Roseanne, thank you so much. I really appreciate is there anything you want to add that I didn't ask you?

Roseanne: No, I just think you're fantastic. Thank you so much for all of your questions.

Anna David: This was a total delight. I knew it would be. You guys, thank you for listening. I will see you.

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR THIS EPISODE OR CLICK HERE TO GET THE POD ON ANY PLATFORM   

 

How Authors Can Master TikTok with BookTok Sensation Shelby Leigh

 

If you hear words (but are they words really?) like "TikTok" and "BookTok" and go, "Ugh" or "I'm too late" or "I'm too old" or anything of the sort, this episode is for you.

Shelby Leigh got into the TikTok game relatively late and, in under two years, has sold 40,000 books as a result of her videos (one video in particular sold roughly 7000 copies!) This success has led the poet and mental health advocate not only to traditional publishing deals but also to a career as a book marketer.

And she makes the whole thing sound so DO-able! In this episode, she breaks down ways to hook TikTok scrollers, what TikTok "likes," how to grow your account to sell books and why BookTok truly can work for any book genre out there (yes, even yours).

Oh, and she sells products (including a $23 TikTok for Authors course) and consults with authors about growing their TikTok accounts. Go to her site to get in on all of it (and check out her TikTok here). Also! Enjoy our conversation, which provides a whole bunch of highly implementable tips and techniques.

RELATED EPISODES:      

Turning Online Readers Into Book Readers with Zara Barrie and Dayna Troisi

Brianne Davis on Launching a Book on Sex and Love Addiction

 
TRANSCRIPT:

Anna David: Okay, so you Shelby know more about TikTok as an author than anyone I've ever talked to no pressure. But I am so excited to hear all the things you know.

Shelby Leigh: I'm excited to share them.

Anna David: So tell me, how did you get started on TikTok? In the beginning?

Shelby Leigh: Yeah, so I firstly have a have a social media background. I've always loved social media, and marketing. That's what I studied in college. And so whenever I was hearing more and more about TikTok, I wasn't like the first person to be on it. But I was fairly early, I think it was the end of 2019, that I started experimenting with it, but then 2020 that I dove into it, and like created my author, account and all of that. So it was early 2020, that does not mean you are too late that you can't grow, I had my biggest growth period this year. So it is not too late to get on the platform and start using it as an author. But that is when I decided to get started was in 2020. And I knew some other authors in my genre, which is like mental health and the poetry space, who were also using it. And so we all were kind of on it at the same time and seeing a lot of success with sales. So I've stuck with it since then, and started teaching it to other authors.

Anna David: So were you all supporting each other? Or is TikTok not really a platform where that works as well?

Shelby Leigh: No, we definitely support each other. I was following all of those people who I knew were on the platform, and we were engaging with each other. And I think as it's grown, there's been more and more people on the platform. I wouldn't say we do it as often as we did in the beginning, when we were trying to find a community and trying to find our audience. We've all kind of established our own audiences at this point. But I definitely still will engage with those authors. And I think having that support and community in the beginning helped out a lot too.

Anna David: So do you think that TikTok can work for all genres? Are there certain genres that it's just way more effective? Well, I mean, definitely, there are certain genres, but can it work for every every author?

Shelby Leigh: I think it can work for every author, but more some genres more than others, I would say like some of the children's books are a little bit more difficult because you'll find parents on the platform. But it kind of depends on like the age range of the child and things like that. So I have worked with some children's book authors, but they haven't seen as much success as the more popular genres like fiction, sci fi, thriller, romance does very, very well. But at the same time, poetry is a very underrated genre, and nobody believes us when we say like, like poetry is blowing up on TikTok. So just because your genre might not be as popular in like mainstream, doesn't mean you can't succeed on TikTok.

Anna David: So a lot of the authors that I've worked with, and I believe, listen, I don't know this for a fact, are in the recovery memoir in the mental health kind of space is that's is it a good place for that?

Shelby Leigh: Definitely. Absolutely. Yeah. Because any niche like I'm in the mental health space as well. Your goal really, is to just target people that are going through those experiences that need those types of messages. So there's like the book tok community, which is very focused in like fiction, and romance and all of that. So you wouldn't necessarily be targeting them, you'd be targeting people who really need the messages in your book, if that makes sense. 

Anna David: And how do you do that? 

Shelby Leigh: So the key to a TikTok video is having a hook, which is like the first one to two seconds, you are hooking them into your video. And the best way to do that is by speaking directly to that person that ideal reader in your mind. So for me, that looks something like if you are going through a dark time, dot dot, dot, something like that, where like immediately someone sees it and is like, oh, I this relates to me, that works really, really well for nonfiction. For someone who writes a fiction book, a thriller book or romance book, they might start their hook with looking for a spicy romance that's really popular on TikTok, basically, like you're listing out the tropes in your book is very common to do for fiction books, things like that, to immediately hook people into what your books about, and they say, oh, I want to read this, or I want to see what happens next in this video. 

Anna David: Do you mean writing it out as the text or saying it or both?

Shelby Leigh: Both, okay, you want to write it out, you want to write it out on the screen for people that aren't listening, especially if it's in the first second. You can't get all that out in one second of speaking. So having it on the screen so people can read it quickly and decide if that's videos for them or not, or scroll through. So that's how you would kind of find your audience. So I recommend doing both or you could put a text hook and then say something different to hook people that maybe weren't interested in the text but they are interested in what you're saying.

Anna David: And what about if you have a business book is TikTok not good for that?

Shelby Leigh: It can be I think, honestly, any author should try it. Just try it for a little bit. because you will find your audience I mean, there's over 1 billion users, it's like one of the fastest growing platforms at this point, there are people on the platform who want to read your book, it's just a matter of you making this content that is tailored to them and understanding who your readers are, what they're interested in, and you'll find them and TikTok TikToks algorithm is very good. So, like, once you start making these videos, and you're interacting with people who might be your ideal audience, or you're interacting with readers who are posting about business books, like you just mentioned, or whatever your genre is, it will learn what you want, what you like, and who to show your videos to.

Anna David: And, um, what's the ideal length?

Shelby Leigh: It really varies, I say, to stick between like seven to 15 seconds, whenever you're starting out and kind of experimenting in that range, you have very short people have very short attention spans, so we got to capture them, but don't hold them too long. But at the same time, and every genre is different, and everyone will have a different experience. But I've had videos that are 40 seconds long that have been some of my top videos. So it really depends.

Anna David: So how do you get something across in seven to 15 seconds is it, you kind of hook them and you get them in the caption?

Shelby Leigh: No, not so much the caption, you really want to focus in the video, but it's very fast paced. You don't want like a 30 second quote or something like that, like you want people to be reading it quickly. I don't like when it's too fast. And I think that's a little bit frustrating, because people really have to watch it again and again and again, which some people use as like a trick, I don't necessarily recommend that. But you do still want it to be pretty fast paced. So a seven second video a 10 second video, it might be less focused on the video itself and more on the text that's overlaid on the video. So yeah, a lot of authors will do things like page flips, where they're like just flipping through their book, and they overlay a scene from the book as text. And it's seven seconds, you're intrigued by what the book is about, and you go check it out. So it can be very, very simple.

Anna David: And so, how that how exactly does that translate into book sales? Is it through the link that you have on your profile page?

Shelby Leigh: So you cannot have a link until you have 1000 followers, which is a bummer for a lot of authors that are just starting out because it can take some time to get that 1000 followers. But I always recommend just putting where to get the book in the comments. So you might not see web traffic to your website, necessarily. But people will go see the name of the book and go search for themselves on Amazon. You know, it's available on a popular retailer. So whenever I have a video blow up, I'll find that I do get some traffic to my website. It's linked in my bio. But primarily people are just going directly to Amazon themselves or Barnes and Noble wherever and searching for the book themselves.

Anna David: Wow. And so when you've done a video, have you gone and looked at your book sales and seen the actual direct effect that video has had?

Shelby Leigh: Oh, yeah, yeah, whenever I have a big spike. I mean, it depends. But I've had like 7000 sales from one video blowing up.

Anna David: Are you kidding me?

Shelby Leigh: Yeah, no, I'm not kidding. It's wild.

Anna David: Oh, my God, how many views did that that one of those videos get?

Shelby Leigh: So that was my top video. And that was around 10 million views.

Anna David: Okay, so let's talk about this going viral thing? Yeah. How do you do it?

Shelby Leigh: I wish there was like a clear answer. And if there was, then we would all be going viral every day. Right? I wish I wish that there was I think the key is experimenting and sticking within that timeframe that I gave you. And really, you have to get your hooks down, you have to grip people in immediately, or you will lose attention. And I still experiment with this. I've been doing it for two and a half years. And I still experiment with this. And some of my videos completely flop. And some of them do really well. So it's really just a matter of figuring it out. And then repeating what works TikTok likes repeats. So I repeat my top videos, I'll change it up a little tiny bit. And they'll pretty much consistently go viral, which is really nice that you can repeat things.

Anna David: How long do you have to wait between when you first posted it and repeating it?

Shelby Leigh: I try not to but like less than two months or so less than I think a month will be a little bit close. But it's so nice with TikTok that new people are shown your videos every single time. So you really don't have to worry about people complaining that you're posting the same things. Again, you do want to post other things and not just the same things on repeat. But at this point two and a half years into promoting one book, I finally have a new one coming out in January. So I'll have some new content but promoting one book for two and a half years. I've had repeats of course, right. I think I've seen one comment of someone being like I've seen this before. And I'm like okay, that's fine. 

Anna David: You're like well, we all have it seven second attention span you've already forgotten. Now do you can you do the same captions even?

Shelby Leigh: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I recommend for captions like pretty short. The length has expanded for captions but again, people like something quick, if you want to share more details, I kind of put things in the comments because people who are really engaged are going to go to the comments anyway. But for captions, you can use the first line to intrigue people even further or to make them stop and watch. It's kind of like a second hook in my opinion. Or you can ask a question like, would you read this? Or what do you think happens next? And then you get comments of people answering those questions. So that's a good way to drive engagement too.

Anna David: And do you think it's important to do an actual video or posting an image with text over it? Or does the video is going to do better?

Shelby Leigh: The video is going to do better? they did recently introduce a feature kind of like an Instagram carousel, where you can upload photos, and people can swipe through them manually, which is interesting, because it is very much a video platform. I haven't seen a ton of success with that yet. So I do recommend sticking with video content. But they do make it pretty easy. If you have like, several different photos you want to use. They have different templates, they call it where you can upload the photos, and they'll put it to music and kind of make it a little bit more video esque. But videos definitely rule the platform, but you can definitely experiment with photos too.

Anna David: And so what was this video that was it seven, it was 7 million views?

Shelby Leigh: It was 10, around 10 million? Yeah.

Anna David: What did you do in that video?

Shelby Leigh: So most of my content is reading poems from my book. That's primarily again, I always recommend that authors once you find what works to stick to it. And so I've repeated that, and tried different hooks. That one was very timely, because it was January, and people are setting new year's resolutions and setting goals for themselves in terms of like self-esteem, and all of that. So I kind of played into that. And my hook was if you see this January 2022. This is a sign that you need to hear or something along those lines. And I read a poem from my book that continuously performs very well. And drives sales. So that one went wild.

Anna David: And so yes, I saw this. And so if if, like this whole this is a sign thing, that’s genius. Yes. Because people are like, I don't want to ignore a sign

Shelby Leigh: Exactly, yeah.

Anna David: But you can’t overuse it. 

Shelby Leigh: No, yeah, I don't over well, I might overuse it. Well. I’m not sure. 

Anna David: Do people, people have copied that I'm sure.

Shelby Leigh: Yeah, other people have done it. And honestly, I don't know if I was the first person to claim that either. But yeah, I think other people, especially in my genre, do it too.

Anna David: And so how often do you post?

Shelby Leigh: I try to post every day. Usually just once a day, a lot of people will tell you, you have to be posting like five times a day. I don't ever do that. And don't recommend that. I think quantity is important, but quality will always be more important. So I try to post once a day, but I definitely miss days.

Anna David: And how long do you spend on you know TikTok?

Shelby Leigh: At this point, not that long, I probably should go on it more and engage more than I do. But in the beginning, I spent a lot of time and of course, it takes time to learn a whole new platform and learn how to put together a video TikTok has really great editing tools built in. So people always kind of shy away and think that they need to have like 10 different editing apps and all these skills to make a video but at this point, it takes me like 5 10 minutes to do a video. But in the beginning, it definitely took me probably upwards of an hour to do just as I was learning it. Yeah.

Anna David: How long after you devoted yourself to it did that? Well, yeah did that video. I was kind of trying to do the math. It sounds like it was right away. Right if you started in early 2020.

Shelby Leigh: Oh, yeah. It was in January of this year that one was. Okay, so two years. yeah, yeah, but I definitely had sales. I mean, that video, I was not like my first viral video. I think it was like three or four months after I started that I had like, a big viral video. But honestly, even with smaller performing videos, I still saw an increase in sales. It just wasn't, you know, 7000 books in one week like that time, but it was you know, a little bit it was still an increase. 

Anna David: How many books overall have you sold since being on TikTok?

Shelby Leigh: It's around like, over 40,000.

Anna David: That is insane.

Shelby Leigh: Thank you.

Anna David: Um, by insane. I mean, I am so impressed. Um so Okay. Now. People have this idea. This sort of Colleen Hoover situation that it's only that like, book tok like so. So people should they consider it book tok when they're talking about their own books that aren't romance books?

Shelby Leigh: Yeah, definitely. There's a lot of different genres posted under book tok. I think what holds a lot of authors back though, is seeing things like Colleen Hoover, where it's primarily reader driven and readers are talking about those books a lot. That's okay. It doesn't mean that we're all going to have a billion readers talking about our books on TikTok, that's the dream, but you can definitely be successful as an author and promote your book and have success, whether or not readers are posting about it in book tok or not.

Anna David: And do, are hashtags important?

Shelby Leigh: They can be yeah, to kind of categorize your work. I always say like, a hashtag is not going to make or break the success of a TikTok like if people are gripped by the hook, they will watch it. My most popular videos don't have hashtags. But I still use them occasionally. So that way, when people do search for my genre, or are looking for mental health book recommendations, my videos still pop up. So that's where they kind of play a role. 

Anna David: It’s fascinating. So when did you so you have a course?

Shelby Leigh: Yeah

Anna David: On TikTok for authors?

Shelby Leigh: Yes.

Anna David: Can you tell me about the course when you created it what people get?

Shelby Leigh: Yes, I created it this summer, and it is a step by step guide. So it's a PDF versus it being like an hours and hours of video content course. So it's meant to be just like a step by step guide. But there are video tutorials embedded into the guide. I created it this summer, just because I was getting a lot of authors coming to me and helping them. And I really wanted to help on a larger scale without having to like hop on calls, which I'm still happy to do. But this guide really kind of takes you through, it's very affordable. It's $23. So other courses are like in the 1000s right now. So I was like I really want to make this affordable. A lot of us have full time jobs or whatever it may be. And so yeah, it's a step by step, it'll walk you through everything from downloading the app and creating your profile and optimizing it, to hooking those readers, to making your first video, post ideas, all of the above.

Anna David: Yeah, and I'll put a link to it in the show notes that just seems like a done deal. If you're listening to this episode spending $23 on learning, you're obviously interested in this. So I think that seems like wow, I'm gonna go buy it. Thank you. Of course. And so do you. Do you do work with authors individually, though?

Shelby Leigh: I do. Yeah. At the moment, I offer like consultations, and I do audits for TikToks and Instagram profiles to kind of help you optimize once you've been using the platform if you're not seeing the results you want. So I give specific recommendations there. And then I also have a variety of other guides like an Instagram guide and a digital marketing foundations course.

Anna David: And would you say you found TikTok to be more effective than Instagram in terms of book sales?

Shelby Leigh: I have yes. And I've had like reels blow up and get more than 10 million views. And it just doesn't translate to the amount of sales as TikTok has for me. So I find that and other authors have echoed that same sentiment that TikTokers are quick buyers, they want to go buy the book as soon as they see that they like it, which I love and appreciate. So Instagram is really great for community building. And I think I connect with readers on a deeper level on Instagram. But in terms of actual sales, TikTok is king. 

Anna David: Now, oh I just had two questions at once. So my mind like froze for a second, what other opportunities have come to you as a result of being an author who's blown up on these platforms?

Shelby Leigh: Well, the first and foremost would be that I was able to get an agent and a couple of different book deals for my book. So the book that blew up on TikTok was originally self-published. And it was republished in July by Simon and Schuster. And then I was able to do an audio book for that book, which was awesome, because I had the proof that people liked my voice because I was reading my poems on TikTok all the time. So that was a dream come true. And then my second book is coming out in January, and I was able to pursue this full time and also launch my book marketing business. So that was also amazing, of course, and a dream come true.

Anna David: What was it like to go from self-publishing to traditional? Did they change a lot? How much control did you have?

Shelby Leigh: I was really happy with the process, they changed, or I was about to say they changed a lot. They did not, they kept pretty much all of it the same, which I really liked. They liked the cover, I think we changed some formatting of some of the poems and like the design of the book, but the poems stayed the same, the inside stayed the same. And of course, the added audio book was a done deal for me it was so fun to record that.

Anna David: And so what and so okay, so the book mark the marketing company, so let's say can we talk about prices? Let's say somebody wanted to work with you one on one, how does that work?

Shelby Leigh: Well at the moment so if they want to come with come to me for like a consultation. That's pretty affordable, like 30 minutes for like, I think 50 or something dollars an hour for like 100 And then if we want to do like a coaching package I offer at the moment like months of support where we kind of go back and forth for like audio messages I’ll audit your work, all of that that starts at 400 for the month. I definitely work to make it as affordable as possible. I made custom packages for a lot of people, which is always fun, but that differs depending on the author.

Anna David: Okay. I think you need to raise your prices.

Shelby Leigh: I know

Anna David: But after all of you listening buy that. Because that is that is crazy value and I just think I just think you should charge more. 

Shelby Leigh: I know, I know, I know, I've yeah, I'm planning on it. But I’m having a lot of fun.

Anna David: But not till after this after this episode.

Shelby Leigh: Not till after this after this episode. I'll give you all a couple of weeks.

Anna David: Yes. Well, this has been fabulous, what am I failing to ask you that that my listeners need to know?

Shelby Leigh: I think if you're hesitant, just start, just get on the app and just start make your accounts. Say that you're an author on the account and then just start scrolling through book tok. Start liking people's videos, search for your genre and find some readers who are really excited about the books they are reading in that genre. And I think you'll get a sense of how great this platform can be. Because whenever you first join it, the algorithm doesn't know you, it's going to give you a lot of random stuff to show you. And you're not going to like any of that. And that's okay. But once you see like the book tok community and how valuable this platform can be, do that. Do it for a few days before you try posting because the algorithm will get to know what you like. And then just just try just experiment, flip through your book and add some text and make it really easy and just see how it goes.

Anna David: Okay, wait, this is reminding me of something else. There's this misconception perhaps and I have it that if you don't do it right away, okay, my boyfriend and I started TikToks, the same day. His was like an anonymous kind of heat, he’s like all nervous about people knowing, political one. Went crazy. He knows nothing about social media, like me and my videos about like the publishing business, no one cared. I mean, whatever. It's all relative. And so I felt like I was constantly digging myself out of this hole, whereas he just kept going viral over and over again. Is that just what, does that happen?

Shelby Leigh: Yeah, that happens. And I think we all have our low moments, too. Like I don't, every single video does not do well, for me. And I'm at like, 400,000 followers, like, it really doesn't mean that you're going to blow up every single time. So yeah, I think don't let that get you down. Don't let that stop you from pursuing it. Because one video can be life changing, honestly.

Anna David: And it's not like it's the truth isn't just that the algorithm is like, oh, she didn't do well from the out of the gate. So forget her like it can happen at any time.

Shelby Leigh: Yeah, I think so. I don't really believe in the whole shadow ban type of thing. I believe that there are different words like the more again, like spicy romance authors will say that there are words that they kind of, don't use, because TikTok will like not like that. And you might experience some sort of blocking or shadow banning from that if you are using like, inappropriate words is all I will say. So that sort of thing. But I don't believe that they would not show your videos because of one bad performing video, or if you haven't blown up yet. They take your video whenever you post it, and they show it to a small group of people. And if those people interact with it, they'll show it to more. And then they'll show it to more, and then they'll show it to more. So it's really dependent on each video.

Anna David: Okay, you've totally motivated me to get to go back there and try harder. Because, you know, my philosophy right now is like, I just try to do a little bit everywhere. I used to just be like, put it all into Instagram and just Instagram and then, and then I'm like, you know, billionaires can buy things and then they go away. Like, I don't want to put it all in one place.

Shelby Leigh: Yes

Anna David: Is that what you would say?

Shelby Leigh: Yeah, definitely. I definitely agree with that.

Anna David: Um, fabulous. So if people want to find more about you, they should obviously follow you in all the places, but can you tell me where they should go?

Shelby Leigh: Definitely, my main website is shelbyleigh.co. My books are there. But you can also find links to the different marketing support that I offer. The TikTok guide is there as well. And then I'm at Shelby Leigh Poetry for my writer accounts on Instagram and Tiktok. And then I'm at writers dot poets on Instagram and Tiktok, where I share book marketing tips and connect with authors as well. 

Anna David: And let's clarify it's L-E-I-G-H in case you're like, oh, L-E-E. So Shelby, thank you so much. It was so valuable. And you all thank you so much for listening. 

Shelby Leigh: Thank you for having me.

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR THIS EPISODE OR CLICK HERE TO GET THE POD ON ANY PLATFORM   

 

Launch a Podcast to Find Your Readers with Whitney Gossett

Whitney Gossett is a woman after my own heart.

A former literary agent who has sold numerous books to Big 5 publishers (including 26 New York Times bestsellers), she saw that traditional publishing was broken. Rather than lamenting that face, she turned around and created an audio company called Content Capital.

In other words, if anyone has her finger on the pulse of how publishing is changing, it's her. That's why I paid attention when she told me her firm belief is that authors should launch podcasts—ideally before they even launch their books.

Listen in to find out more about how to record episodes about your book in progress to encourage book pre-orders, why the podcast industry isn't as saturated as you may believe and so much more.

If you're looking to launch a podcast—or revamp your existing one—I highly recommend checking out Content Capital's services.

RELATED EPISODES:       

How to Make Your Book Into a Podcast with Jeremy Enns

How to Get on Podcasts to Promote Your Book with John Corcoran

How to Set Up an Author Podcast Tour with Alex Sanfilippo

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR THIS EPISODE OR CLICK HERE TO GET THE POD ON ANY PLATFORM   

 

How to Get PR without Spending a Fortune with Christina Nicholson

 

Christina Nicholson has seen all the bad publicity pitches.

A former TV anchor who hit "delete" faster than publicists could send her terrible pitches, Nicholson is the CEO of Media Maven, a PR agency that offers an online course and group program to help people get media coverage without having to hire a publicist.

Nicholson is also a TEDx speaker and the founder of Podcast Clout, a database for pitching podcasts. And she's offered you—yes you, lucky listener—a 50% off coupon for the service. 

To get Christina's list of 16 outlets to pitch, click here. To get the exact pitch that got a newbie on TV in San Diego, click here. To check out her three-day bootcamp to nail a pitch, click here. To find out about her Media Mentoring Program, click here. And to get access to Podcast Clout for 50% off, click here and use the code LEGACY.

That's a lot to do but I'm not done yet! Listen in on our conversation about the easiest ways to get PR, how to make a podcast want you, what do after your media appearance and so much more.

I also may have talked her out of doing the book she thought she was going to do and talked her into doing a different one.

It's all in this episode! Enjoy.

ALSO! HEY! YOU KNOW THAT AMAZING PODCAST THAT I MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE—FREE TIIME WITH JENNY BLAKE? YOU CAN LISTEN TO IT ON ANY OF THE PLATFORMS HERE.

RELATED EPISODES:     

How to Get a Journalist's Attention with HARO Creator Peter Shankman

Cameron Herold on Generating Free PR and Creating a Vivid Vision for Your Book

Talking About Your Book on TV and Podcasts with Media Coach Susan Harrow

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR THIS EPISODE OR CLICK HERE TO GET THE POD ON ANY PLATFORM   

 

Publishing in the Time of Cancel Culture with Tony Lyons

 

Tony Lyons, the CEO of Skyhorse Publishing, is not one to shy away from controversy.

He's known, in fact, for picking up books from other publishers when the authors are "cancelled."

I'll be honest...I was scared to record this conversation because the times we live in—where anything you say if you don't subscribe to a certain way of thinking can be an opportunity for others to take you down. But the fact is, I believe that everyone should have a right to say what they believe, even if it's not what I believe, and that a mob mentality approach to scandals doesn't help anyone.

And so we got into all of it—how Skyhorse picked up Woody Allen's memoir after Hachette cancelled it, the ways some of his books have lost "likes" when they've been squashed, the money Vanity Fair must have spent punishing him for the Allen book and more. We also talked about which media opportunities can really move the needle in terms of book sales, why newsletter lists matter, how editorially influenced the New York Times bestseller list is and just how few sales you can have to make it on the list...among many other topics.

Brace yourself for this one.

ALSO! HEY! YOU KNOW THAT AMAZING PODCAST THAT I MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE—FREE TIIME WITH JENNY BLAKE? YOU CAN LISTEN TO IT ON ANY OF THE PLATFORMS HERE.

RELATED EPISODES:     

Jason Pinter on His Journey From Editor to Writer to Publisher

Meghan Daum on What Happens When Your First Book Becomes a Cult Classic 

TRANSCRIPT:

 Anna David:    Thanks for doing this, Tony. 

Tony Lyons:    Sure, thanks for having me.

 

Anna David:    Long overdue. As I was telling you a starting to tell you, I'm a great admirer of your let me just say, audacity, your bravery in the face of canceled culture. And as someone who lives in Los Angeles and has grown up a certain way and has certain beliefs, it actually like, literally, I'm scared talking about this because it's a crazy time we live in. So, the reason I'm saying this is that your company has published many books that the more traditional publishers have either been scared of or literally cancelled, and you have scooped them up. Let's talk about that.

 

Tony Lyons:    Yeah, first of all, I mean, I would just like to say that in many cases, we published books on both sides of the same question. So what I what I really liked about that, is that, you know, if you're going to cancel somebody, I think that you ought to at least give them an opportunity to give their point of view, because how does how to viewers or how to readers or people watching movies, how does anybody figure out whether they agree with something or not? So we don't want to live in a world where people just tell us what to do or what to think or what to read. We want to hear arguments. So make your best argument. And if you have a better argument, you don't need censorship, you don't need cancel culture, you don't need to deep platform people. I mean, why take somebody off Twitter? Even the president, even if you hate the president, even if it just gives you this sort of visceral reaction, and you just think I would do anything, to not have to listen to his tweets in the morning.

 

Think about what it means if you can kick a president off of Twitter, you know, that's the ultimate power, then that you can just silence anybody. And then once that power is kind of created, how do you ever rein that in? So how do we know that it's not the government deciding that they want to go to the Iraq War, right, and they're gonna just pull all the strings, they're gonna use a kind of power, that no dictator in history has had, a kind of like, power for propaganda, and for censorship and for deep platforming. Where they can take sort of like a CIA official and out her, or they can control what people find on Google, or Amazon can not allow you to advertise for a certain book, or they can actually take the likes off a book. I mean, just the granular nature of it. Like they can get so deep into censoring something, because they've been told to, so the government can kind of collude with big tech companies to get out a certain message. And there's this great document that was put out by the Surgeon General in the fall of 2021. And what I mean by great, I mean, it's a scary, it's like reading 1984, right?

 

So it's about countering health, misinformation. Sounds like a great thing. You know, you want to know the truth, you, you know, so that you don't make bad decisions, right. But the but the scary part of it, is that it's all about strategy. And there's no definition of what misinformation is. So the problem is that misinformation is a great word. It sounds like you're being helped. So you have misinformation or disinformation, or violence, or you call somebody like a domestic terrorist, or you call them a conspiracy theorist. But many of the great revelations that book publishers or investigative journalists have made were conspiracy theories till they were proving true. So what I think we need in this country is as much speech as possible, as much open dialogue as possible. And then people really know what they're deciding on people really know why they're making decisions. It's not just based on what they've been pushed towards or threatened towards or forced towards. Anyway, I could go on and on, but I'm gonna go and have some dialogue here because I talk about dialogue and debate.

 

Anna David:    Exactly. I must dialogue too, although this is one where I really do want you to talk about because I just find it very fascinating, and I've never had someone like you on the show. And, you know, I think about it, like I said, I live in Los Angeles. I didn't quite understand the bubbleness of it. I wouldn't if I didn't have this entire community of entrepreneurs, many of whom live in Texas and Arizona and other places. And so I just sort of thought, well, everybody smart thinks this one thing. Of course, that's what everyone thinks. Then I'm like, wait a minute, I'm seeing these friends. They're very smart. And they think this, and I think it was the moment of the artists leaving Spotify, because of what Joe Rogan said, where I'm like, what is actually going on here? And so you have not been afraid to speak out about this ever, or have you?

 

Tony Lyons:    Yeah, so I don't feel afraid of publishing any of these kinds of books and of saying the kinds of things that I that I say, but I mean, for me, it's more that I'm more afraid of the alternative. Which I think is living in a country or in a world where I can't give my point of view and where people can't publish books on certain things, or they can't make comments about certain things. And I think anything for I would say just about anything ought to be on the table. But there's so much now, that's not. I mean, there's so much where if you say something that's just a little bit off the narrative, then suddenly, you're this terrible person? So but let's see, how would I would like to say this? Well, there's a book that I'm considering publishing, so I'm not going to give details on it. But this book has to do with the transgender swimmer issue, you know, which I think is a fascinating question. You know, so you've got swimmers who are born, I mean, I don't know the right lingo. So I'm going to, you know, put myself in a bad position quickly.

 

But I would just say that, that there are people who have trained their entire lives who are smaller, weaker, physically, for whatever reason, and they are the best in the world at what they do. And then you get somebody else who comes in, that weighs 50 pounds more, who has much more muscle mass, and beats them easily. So I think, as a publisher, not really taking the role of trying to tell anybody, what is reasonable there. But I think at the very least, it's an issue that people can talk about, that they can wrestle with. And so you know, where I come out on, it doesn't really matter. Yeah, so what I think and what really matters to me, is that it has to be okay to have that conversation, and to have an uncomfortable conversation. And if you're going to be a publisher in the first place, you ought to be willing and excited to get involved in those complicated conversations. Those conversations that people don't really want to have at dinner parties, because somebody is going to throw their drink and march out. But why do you want to publish a book?

 

Why do you want to read a book that just has everything that you agree with it? I mean, what's the possible point of that you would have a better use for your time. So you should be reading things often that you disagree with. And if your position is really strong, then it can stand up to other arguments, you don't have to then say, you know, my position is so weak. Because censorship really is all about weakness. It's about not feeling that you can make a stronger argument that will convince people. So you want to force people to see things your way, or you want to forbid people from reading certain things, because they're so dangerous. And so, I don't think that that's true. And I don't think that that's good. And I think the world is better with as much dialogue, as much conversation, as much competing ideas as possible. And that the marketplace of ideas is a pretty good place for people to kind of come together. And that now we have kind of two Americans.

 

And I think lots of that comes out of this sort of like, well, we're only going to watch certain TV shows, we're only going to read certain books, we're going to try to stifle any kind of other point of view. And then how do you ever get closer to the other side because you can't hear their point of view? You're just subjected to propaganda from your own side, from your own people telling you that these people are evil, but you can bet their people are saying the same thing, that you're evil. And it just can't do that kind of half the country is, is brilliant and wise and the other half are idiots. I mean, that just isn't true, it's convenient for both sides to think of the other side, like that. But I would like to as a publisher be in a position of seeing more possibilities for people coming together.

 

Anna David:    And so, how would you say traditional publishing is broken today?

 

Tony Lyons:    Yeah, so I think that part of it is that is that there's so much fear of any kind of controversy. So that you can have a big publisher like, Hachette sign up a book by Woody Allen that they really like, that they say they really liked. That even, a couple of weeks before they cancel it, they come out and they say, Look, we're really sorry, people disagree. We think people ought to have the right to disagree, we think, you know, it's fine that people go outside and pick it where we're publishers were for free speech. But we're still going to publish it. Because we really like it, we signed it up for a reason, nothing's changed, since we signed it up. But then the stakes just got higher. So the stakes got to well, sort of like you, you said, where some musicians started to pull out of Spotify.

 

People started to say, well, we're going to pull out of Hachette. And so people are not going to work there. They're not going to publish there. And so I think the problem with caving to that sort of pressure is that there's no logical end to it. It is that you've sort of created a monster there, then where anybody who has a little bit more power can just decide for you what you're going to do what you're going to say what you're going to publish. And so I'm more afraid to get back to your question. I'm more afraid of that kind of world than I am of any consequences. I mean, right after I published the Woody Allen book, I was contacted by Vanity Fair. And I was thinking, Well, you know, what's my punishment gonna be? There were a lot of very angry, powerful people thinking we worked so hard to get this book canceled.

 

And they then said, well, what did we really win by getting it canceled? So Skyhorse published the book two weeks earlier than Hachette had planned to publish it. So all of that work that they did help them in no way at all. So there were people who were angry. And I was the face of that decision. So Vanity Fair wrote an article on me, hard for me to imagine that that article came out of anything other than my decision to publish the Woody Allen book, which is Apropos of Nothing. So my feeling there is that is that I don't really care that they wrote that article. But I was fascinated that, that would happen, because nobody at Vanity Fair knows who I am. Nobody at Vanity Fair knows who Skyhorse publishing is. I mean, none of the readers there, they didn't review our books. I didn't know anybody there socially, there was no connection whatsoever. There's nothing in it for them, they're not going to make any money off writing that kind of story.

They're not going to get more readers. So why would they do that store. So the only logical thing for me is that it's kind of a punishment, it's a part of the whole sort of cancel culture, and then they called it something it was a really terrible title. I can't quite think of it, but it was just sort of an awful title that made Skyhorse look like this terrible place. But then you read this endless article that took them months and months where they interview so they treated me like I was somebody world famous. That they would want to spend literally hundreds of 1000s of dollars researching and interviewing people to find out what the backstory is, but the whole story is that they were upset that I published Woody Allen's book. Which is, you know, one sentence.

 

Anna David:    Yeah, it's very interesting. I reread it this morning. And so I started working in media in the 90s, the workplaces I've been in I've had phones thrown at me, I'm trying to discern what is the disturbing part and there's even this thing about Oliver Stone, I know I live in Hollywood, this is. This is what is, the story and of abuse that I have put up with in the workplace, and then I hear about things, and I hear comments, and I absolutely my heart goes out to women who have felt, who have had been a terrible, terrible situations. I have been too, when I hear about situations that do not sound terrible in their description, and I immensely have a lot of sympathy for it, it just makes me feel like, what world am I living in?  So yeah, it's a fascinating story that ultimately didn't say very much. And did you know that's what was gonna happen? It was probably worse than you expected.

 

Tony Lyons:    So there's sort of a playbook for all of these kinds of stories, which I didn't really know at the time, but I'm perfectly fine with, which that they sort of start off by telling you, oh, you've built up this great company, we're so impressed with it. You know, what are your favorite books? What drove you to start a publishing company? How have you been so successful? All of those kinds of things. And then they go on with that sort of stuff for an hour or two hours, and then they get into something else. And then the whole story is the other thing, which is fine. It's a journalist strategy. So was it worse than I thought it would be? No, it was exactly as I thought it would be. Once I really got into it, because I decided to engage because I'd never been in that position before.

 

And part of what I like about being a publisher is this incredible journey, that I feel like I go on with the book or with each issue that that comes up. And so this was just another part of that journey. And I wanted to kind of embrace it fully, and talk to them as much as they wanted to talk. And we wrote dozens of letters back and forth, where they made certain allegations that they had heard and from somebody, and then I said, no, no, that that's not the story. Here's the document, here's another person you should talk to. But it was really interesting, like I said, because I'm nobody in the publishing field. I mean, in the sense that none of their readers know who I am. None of their readers care about us. Almost none of our books would even appeal to any of their readers. So what's the interest that they'd be willing to spend so much money on? Other than to sort of punish somebody.

 

Anna David:    Do you think it works as like…I mean, this is I know, we're not using names like Ronan Farrow, look what we did. Like, they get points for that? Or it's just they're mad and they want revenge?

 

Tony Lyons:    I think that they, that whoever sort of started it, and you know, it might have been Ronan Farrow, I don't know the details. So. But I think that that's the kind of thing that they just sort of thought about doing, passed it from one writer to another, but they really wanted to kind of get it done. And then I think it just took much more time then they thought, and they probably thought of canceling it. I mean, I've been involved in some long, complicated projects, books that have gone on for years. One that was I think there was a co writer, and then the co writer writer dropped out and wanted to write a separate book. So it was a project like that, that I just think went on and on for a while. But it was fascinating for me just to kind of take part in it. And also just to see what they were going to possibly come up with, you know, because I had no idea what their what their conclusions were going to be. It was clear that that they were bias that they were trying to get a specific store. But I was curious what they were going to really get and so you, you tell me what did they get?

 

Anna David:    It was a lot of words. And I was trying to understand what was super interesting about them. I don't know if you read it, you were like, wow, I'm a lot more interesting than I thought. They, you know, really made a lot out of, well, I didn't know I didn't come at it from your perspective of knowing Oh, this is specifically about the Woody Allen book. I figured it was about a bunch of the books, honestly.  But it's interesting. There was a thing this week and now I can't remember but a Cuban writer. Did you hear about this publishing scandal this week?

 

Tony Lyons:    No, tell me I’ve been really busy with it with a couple of books that are coming out later this fall.

 

Anna David:    Okay, I will not be able to speak ignorantly about it now, because I don't really remember the details but I can send you afterwards basically what I think happened. Cuban writer said something thing about woke white women in publishing, who worked in publishing, and there was a huge Twitter drama. And a lot of smart people are going thank God, it was a Cuban guy. I'm pretty sure, thank god somebody said this, anyway, I'll send you the stories. But so in terms of publishing, I mean, because the way traditional publishing works is there's no research, there is no studies, you know, there was this trial a couple months ago that sort of put it out into the world with people who work in publishing know, which is that it's all guess work. Do you think that's true?

 

Tony Lyons:    Do I think it's all guesswork? I mean, I think that it is true. And I've looked at lots of the old book publishing cases where, you know, there's a question of, does the publisher have a duty to sort of really dig into the details of each book that they publish? Not really practical, you know, you're sort of engaging the author to be the expert. So you might read a book for libel. But you might not be able to verify every statement in hundreds and hundreds of four or 500 page books. And so there is no legal obligation to do that as a as a book publisher.

 

Anna David:    Yes, true. And I remember with A Million Little Pieces, that was right, when I sold my first book that that that came up. But I mean, in terms of book deals, in terms of what's going to be successful in terms of the madness of how it works, if we're talking about like the Big Five, do you think it makes sense how it works?

 

Tony Lyons:    No, I mean, I think that the big five publishers now are generally just playing it really safe. So they have a lot of money, they have a lot of power. And they buy the biggest books by the most famous people and they make 80 or 90% of their money from those top titles. And many of them are, you know, second or third or fourth books from people whose prior books sold really, really well. So it's become much more of a science. I mean, I know that in the recent court hearings, there was lots of talk of publishing, being really random. I'm not sure what the logic there was. But you had people from the biggest publishing companies in the world, saying that it's just sort of the luck of the draw, that you can pay $5 million for a book and you can sell 20,000 copies. You can pay nothing for a book and you can sell millions. I don't really believe that that's the way publishing is run now. I believe that the bigger companies, generally, when they're not, sort of censoring certain topics are run by people who have MBAs and you know, are really good with numbers and are making really smart business decisions?

 

Not really publishing decisions, you know, where I don't think the top people that most of the big five publishers are reading many books that they're looking at spreadsheets. So and they're running billion dollar companies, you know, there's a logic to that. But on the on the censorship side, I find it to be just sort of a really bad time for book publishing. And I think we're going to come out of it. I mean, I think that a lot of the top people that big publishing companies don't really want to do it. And they do it mainly when they feel forced to. So I don't think those decisions are coming from the most powerful people at the company, I think they're coming from other people who are putting them in a position where it's a bad business choice to make the decision that they want to make.

 

Anna David:    Yeah, yeah. So tell me where Skyhorse fits into that?

 

Tony Lyons:    Well, on the on the censorship side, it's, it's very easy to see that we are going to keep publishing books that are going to make some people angry, that are going to sort of stir things up. Many cases where we're going to publish on both sides of the same thing. We did some books during the pandemic that were censored. We did a book called The Case for Vaccine Mandates. And then we did The Case Against Vaccine Mandates, and the case against was censored everywhere, and was taken down from all kinds of platforms. So we had a whole bunch of cases like that we're doing both sides and where the other side of the argument was just made to disappear. So I think we're going to keep fighting those kinds of battles and we've been pretty successful in pushing that.

 

Anna David:    In terms of that, is it literally like on the platforms, you'll see it's there on Amazon?  I don't know if we can name companies, and then it's gone the next day, something like that?

 

Tony Lyons:    Yeah, yeah. So there definitely were plenty of cases where things just disappeared.

 

Anna David:    And could not be found on those platforms anymore?

 

Tony Lyons:    No, I mean, there's been a ton of that, during this this last two and a half year period where if you counter something that's been put out by the government, the decisions were often kind of made by algorithms. So I don't think there's anybody to talk to, or to argue with. But there have been some really, really terrible things have gone on. So there have been lots of books where the positive likes on Amazon, have been taken off. And I'd never heard of that. I mean, so I'd so I say lots of books, and I assume that it's kind of a, it's a program that is supposed to fight misinformation.

 

Anna David:    So you mean remove news, or just like five stars or whatever?

 

Tony Lyons:    No, I'm saying that the actual likes so. So we had one, one book by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called The Real Anthony Fauci, really provocative book, but it had 2194 citations, it had a blurb by a Nobel Prize winning scientist. So lots of people disagreed with it, but they didn't disagree with it on the merits. Like, there was nobody, no newspaper, no TV show came out and said, oh, there's a citation on page 85 that is wrong, or that it claims that there's a peer reviewed study, but there isn't. There was none of that, that it was just that it was taken down from platforms. So there was a whole kind of program for books like that, which I think was sort of scary to watch in action. And that was that you would see that the author would get a hit piece written on him or her in the New York Times, or in Vanity Fair or in many other places.

 

But there'd be no review of the book, even if the book was selling really well. So that was a book that sold more than a million copies, and in the three different formats. And it got no reviews in any major newspaper in the country. The New York Times in its first week, it far outsold any other hardcover nonfiction book, buy 10s of 1000s of copies. But the New York Times made another book than the number one title, because they just didn't like that book. I mean, that's my analysis of it. There's no other argument that I think makes sense.

 

Anna David:    It was on the list, it was on the New York Times list, it just wasn't the number one spot.

 

Tony Lyons:    Right. So they made it number five. But, but they made their own book, which was the 1619 Project, which was written by a New York Times writer about a project that was funded by the New York Times. So you get the feeling that when it comes to books that the New York Times doesn't like or conservative books, or just any kind of narrative that they're not on the same page with, they are going to treat it differently. So there it's not really just a bestseller list. It's a New York Times recommended reading list. So people in publishing know that. But the general public doesn’t.

 

Anna David:    The Exorcist writer sued them: William Bladdy. Because not The Exorcist, but Legion, his other book was but and they and they came to court and they said, “Hey, this is actually an editorial thing.” And the court sided with them.

 

Tony Lyons:    Yeah, I don't think that the court should have…you know that they're calling it a bestseller list. They're not calling it a recommended reading list.

 

Anna David:    Right. Right. But I also did want to talk about, so Skyhorse. How many books do you acquire a year? Can people just submit? How does that work?

 

Tony Lyons:    Yeah, sure. So we published something like 500 books a year now, the most that we ever published in a year was just under 1200. That I think was too many. It's just too much work. And I and I get involved to some extent in each of those. So if you try to, I mean, to many of them, it was a very, very small involvement, but some involvement, and if you think about that four books each day or you know, three and a half books each day. That's just not going to work. And I like to be more involved. So now we're gonna publish something around 400 bucks per year. And I'm happy with that number. So yeah, and anybody can send us books, probably a third of our books come from agents and something like a third are books that we can't see above and we seek people out where we think it's a topic that that we'd like to publish a book on. And then about a third are from just people sending us books.

 

Anna David:    Yeah, and they can just do it online, they could just go to the website and send books. And I did want to talk about this has been fantastic. I did want to get into this conversation you and I had this other time about media, and I will always proclaim, like, you know, TV doesn't sell books, it gives a lot of credibility, but it doesn't really sell books. And I said that to you. And you were like, well, it really depends. And you had these two examples, what were those?

 

Tony Lyons: What I think really sells books now…and we've seen that for many of our books is, you know, a mailing list that the author or that organization has put together. And that if you write a certain kind of letter, and there's a strong enough nexus between your mailing list and the topic of the book, we've had cases where a mailing list of, you know, 500,000 people has sold 30 or 40,000 books. And that's a really, that's a shocking correlation there. Because as somebody in publishing, you know, people outside of publishing my thing, well, 30,000 books isn't that many books, but to put it into context for viewers, the number 15 book on The New York Times bestseller list about at the end of the summer, was around 3000 copies. So, I mean, there were other books that didn't make the bestseller list that sold 30,000 or 40,000. But that's the story that we've already covered. So but it can be three or 4000 copies to make the New York Times bestseller lists. So if somebody has a mailing list, and they can sell 30,000 books, they can get on to certainly the Wall Street Journal bestseller list, USA Today, Publishers Weekly. And then then you know, the times is going to be a be a toss up.

 

Anna David:    Right. Right. So newsletters are the most important. Most people obviously do not have 500,000 people on their newsletter list. But partnering with an organization is a great way to do it for 10 different places. And so but what TV shows, or other media outlets, do you think can move the needle?

 

Tony Lyons:    So I think that really targeted podcasts are probably the best way to sell books. Now. I have watched books on a minute by minute basis for sales through Amazon. And I've watched while somebody was on a podcast and sort of looked at what they said, and then how many copies sold in the next 60 seconds or two minutes or three minutes. And I find that sort of thing. I mean, I'm not a numbers person really, I've found that to be really fascinating. And so that was if people described their book in a way that really made somebody take action. So part of the problem is that if you go on the Today Show, and it's a workout book, and you do two or three different ways to work out, I think people watching that just take that as content and they just sort of say thank you.

 

And they write a couple of notes. And they're done. They don't they don't want to read a 300 page book with step by step things in it, they see how you do a sit up and they're happy. So, I think that when you're dealing with a podcast, it's about something specific. And the person kind of teases what the book is all about, then I think there's a strong enough nexus that you might have 1000 people suddenly just click on their phones and buy the book. And that I had never seen before you know, even on television, I mean, I've seen cases where they were 10, 20, 30,000 copies so from a really big TV show, but that's really rare now.

 

Anna David:    Are there specific podcasts that you can say I really can make a big difference. I mean, like I somebody had on the podcast said something like a Tim Ferriss or Joe Rogan actually isn't good because it's cult of personality peep the listeners care about them, they care less about the guests. Whereas something with like a sort of enthusiastic, inquisitive listenership that might make a bigger difference.

 

Tony Lyons:    Yeah, I would say that the more targeted the better. So you know if it's somebody going on a Joe Rogan show that that really fits the Joe Rogan demographic really well. And it's something that he discusses all the time. And then somebody just nails that. And then Joe Rogan says, hey, this is a book that every one of you ought to read, then I think you're gonna sell a huge number of copies. I mean, he doesn't do that very often. But yeah, so I mean, there's nothing specific that I would point to that I think is great. In general, I think that there are hundreds of podcasts now. And that's a really nice thing. Because they're not hundreds of gigantic TV shows that you have any prayer of getting on. There are hundreds and hundreds of podcasts that in your niche might be just perfect.

 

Anna David:    Well, one final thing I wanted to ask you about Skyhorse, so for people who published through you? You know, when you have so many? Are you putting marketing and PR and all of this stuff behind it? Is it dependent on the author? I know, when I did books with Harper, it was very much incumbent upon me to do a lot of that work. Where to Skyhorse stand with that?

 

Tony Lyons:    Yeah, so I kind of want to publish people who care about selling their own books. Yeah. So I think that the age of kind of like, you write a book, and you hand it off to a publisher, and then call in six months later and say, is it a best seller yet? That's totally gone. I mean, I'm not sure that there ever was a time line like that. But in any case, now, I think it's a real partnership. And what the publishing company can do is help you leverage, whatever assets you have. So if you have a great mailing list, then what's the right letter to send to those people? Because if you send the wrong letter, nothing happens. And if you don't have click throughs in the letter, to buy the book, so what are the best practices? And I would say that even in a one page letter, there should be something like 6 to 8, click throughs, to buy the book. You should send them to a website, that maybe is the publishing company web website, send them to Amazon, but also give them a choice between Amazon, Barnes and Noble, you know, various other places.

 

So I think doing it like that, and having some of them be on keywords. But then having two or three places where it says, Click here to buy the book, that those kinds of things are things that publishing companies can help you with and should help you with. And the same is true even of say Twitter, I've had people tweet about a book who had 50 million followers, and nothing happened, because they say something like, my friend, so and so wrote this amazing book. But the person is a world famous personality, who may be, people like the guy because he's good looking. So those 50 million people are not going to be book buyers. I mean, they're not going to be booked buyers for a specific book.  Because the followers are just people who are following that person, because of their looks, or their fame or something. It's not targeted.

 

So, we had that case, once where we published an environmental book, that was a really serious book. And the person who had 50 million followers tweeted that it was a great, great book, and that people ought to read it. And it was about a month after the publication date. And I don't think that book sold 20 copies in that week, with 50 million people got this tweet. But if you have 100,000 Twitter followers, and it's about, you know, let's say it's about the rain forest, and all of your Twitter followers follow what's going on in the Amazon. And they're really concerned with Brazil, and they're following the election in Brazil, and they're concerned about it, and you're coming out with a protect the rain forest manifesto. Those 100,000, that's different than Joe Rogan, or some famous persons 50 million people. That's 100,000 people care. And there's no telling what percentage of those people you can get. I mean, if it's it, good enough book by the right person really targeted, timed well, it could be 20,000 people out of that. 100,000

 

Anna David:    Yeah, yeah. Well, this has been very illuminating. I hope you've had fun. And so Tony, thank you so, so much. To find out more like people should go to Skyhorse website. Where should they go?

 

Tony Lyons:    Yeah, they can go to Skyhorsepublishing.com

 

Anna David:    Well, thank you and so much. Is there anything that you wanted to add that I didn't ask you?

 

Tony Lyons:    I would like you to tell me about what you do. Maybe that doesn't have to be on the podcast.

 

Anna David:    These people are sick of it. No, they love me to death. It will stop it and then I'll tell you everything.  Thanks, you guys. Thanks so much for listening.

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Trademark Trouble with Brian Sachetta

 

Brian Sachetta is the author and owner of “Get Out of Your Head,” a brand and book series that seeks to help folks overcome anxiety and depression.

As a software developer, he combines his experiences in the tech world with previous mental health battles to draw parallels between computer systems and the human mind in order to give readers practical strategies for evading their own psychological demons.

His two books—Get Out of Your Head: A Toolkit for Living with and Overcoming Anxiety and Get Out of Your Head Vol. 2: Navigating the Abyss of Depression—are designed to help those struggling with anxiety and depression.

In this episode, we had every intention of discussing Amazon glitches and working the back end of the site when publishing trouble arises but we got so into our discussion about trademark troubles, beta readers and how important it is not to trash other writers that I simply didn't allow him to discuss our planned topic. 

Juicy stuff here! I think you'll love it. For more about Brian and his books, go to Get Out of Your Head.

ALSO! HEY! YOU KNOW THAT AMAZING PODCAST THAT I MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE—FREE TIIME WITH JENNY BLAKE? YOU CAN LISTEN TO IT ON ANY OF THE PLATFORMS HERE.

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How to Write a Book Everyone Recommends with Rob Fitzpatrick

How Authors Can Avoid Getting Sued with Maria Riegger

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How to Fix a Broken Book: Misty McAfee

 

Misty McAfee is an author, marketer, real estate agent and delightful human. She's also someone who has some writing out there that could be relaunched—in particular a book on codependence she released in 2015 and a play she released in 2021.

In this episode, we went through both and discussed how she could change her title, cover, description, publishing company and more.

We also discussed what made her launch the way she did, how to relaunch a book while keeping your existing Amazon reviews and what happens when you dedicate a book to a now ex-husband.

Everything we discuss can be applied to your own books so take some notes for either your upcoming launch or a relaunch of any existing book!

RELATED EPISODES:  

How to Fix a Broken Book: John Checki

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How to Sell 1000s of Books Before Even Writing it with Dan Nicholson

 

Dan Nicholson graduated summa cum laude from Seattle University with degrees in accounting and information systems before completing a fellowship at the Governmental Accounting Standards Board. He went on to work at Deloitte and various Fortune 500 companies and has been named to CPA Practice Advisor’s 40 Under 40 list of global accountants four times.

But, as he might say, blah blah blah.

His passion—and what he wrote his book Rigging the Game about—is what he had to unlearn after doing all those impressive things. He poured it all into Certainty U, a program that helps purpose-based entrepreneurs "get lucky."

On this episode, we discussed how he was able to sell thousands of copies of a book he hadn't yet written—in short, how he was able to rig the book publishing game. (And how you can, too.)

For more about Dan and his book, go to www.riggingamazon.com.

RELATED EPISODES:    

Jesse Krieger on Crowd Funding Your Book Launch

Mike Koenigs on Why You Need to Have a Product Embedded in Your Book

Writing a Book in Public with Jesse J. Anderson

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